The Wheel Of the Year
by Vixen Argentum
Summary: Loly is like winter. Orihime is like spring. One kills the other...but ultimately to be reborn. A character study done with a four seasons theme for the first bing in the 2019 Bleach Big Bang. Implied Aizen/Loly and Loly/Menoly. Referenced Ulquihime. Hints at future Loly/Orihime.


A/N: All right. I wanted to do something new for this first bing. In fact I want to do new things for pretty much every bing. :) As much as I like being known for what I'm known for...I'd like to also be known for being flexible.

This would have never been written had I not read byakuyakuchiki's "god is a woman" however. Though in this piece, the pairings are not strong or obvious as that's not what this piece is for...I remembered something that I loved and had lost long ago. Thank you for the inspiration.

Anyway to anyone writing in the bings...keep on bangin'.

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Loly had hated the first day that winter had turned to spring.

Winter was war, and winter was death, and winter was cold, sterile, dark. Even still, it was also white, just like the bone of her mask, and the dry, bleak sands of Hueco Mundo illuminated by the equally stark moon. Winter chill was easy for her to fend off. Her Lord's bed was warm—his body too—even if his heart was ever frigid. But that was fine, and she was fine. After all, when he cast her out, by Menoly's side she could sleep to her heart's content, comforted by soft arms and even softer, sweeter words.

Winter was for survivors. It culled the weak and the sick and the old. Even animals that migrated for warmer climes would die in the journey if they weren't fit enough to make it. Young born in warmth would be tested by their first frost and granted favor. It was just like her, with her poison and stinger, her bared teeth and clenched fist. The warmth was in her. In her blood, in the red that stained her hands in a kill, and she had power, sitting with her partner at her Lord's side, a say similarly in who could live and who could die.

At least, that was true…until spring.

Orihime bloomed everything she touched. Fractured bones resetting, skin regrowing, limbs regenerating. Even Ulquiorra flowered then died, like an annual plant, expressing color that surely no one had ever seen, sudden, fleeting, and beautiful.

Loly would never be like that. It was terrifying. It was the undoing of everything she'd ever known or done. And the lock that it had on her Lord made her angry and sick. Her opinions and words and feelings were shut down as soon as they were expressed. Sure, Aizen's tone was always patient and kind…but that's what made his words cut even deeper. Menoly would listen, but she could see when her eyes would glaze over as she hit her limit but was too polite to say that she couldn't handle any more negativity. And even when she got her chance to express her frustration and rage that she clung to like a honeybadger, she was repelled and then forgiven. And that just made her even angrier.

Then summer came. It was made even more miserable because she knew that it could only come to pass because spring had been there. Her beloved Lord hadn't actually cared for any of them, only using them for his benefit, and she hated her for shattering that illusion, too. She had Menoly still, thank the gods, but so many were missing. Ironically, Orihime was taken away at the moment that Loly could have used her. So many injured she could have saved, even some of the dead if her Lord's intuitions had been correct. So there she was left in the emptiness while she and the rest of her kind tried hard to pick up the pieces.

Growth hurt worse than dying. New roots digging, sprouting new leaves to seek out the sun instead of living on the stores she had deep inside that could outlast anyone. Of course, she could only experience pain—it's subjective and internal, while metamorphosis in the beginning can only be noticed from the outside. New ways of life, new ways of thinking. She learned more and more and hated every second of it—but among the dead had been the Octava, so now everybody had to step in whenever new ideas were needed. Halibel steered in a more peaceful direction, so unlike her, so that was new too. At least in the times before, Barragan had appreciated winter too.

When the quincies came there was even more to do. She fought with what she could, but in the end she still lost and it stung. Eventually she and Menoly fled to the shifting sands among the resistance. While it was nice to survive again, it made everything she'd just endured pointless and she was bitter. In her new growth, she accepted the help of varied allies, not just hollows. In her new growth she fought for the world and not for herself. She hates that she owes her life to one of the quincy she fights…so now her black and white world view is both technicolor and in shades of grey.

When she fights for the last time and loses for real, the last thing she sees is Menoly's sword shatter before it goes dark. Again, all this growth for nothing. It's a good thing that she can't see when Orihime arrives and shields her helpless body. But when she wakes up, something is different this time. She's nestled into Menoly's side in one of the tents, her wounds tended to and she knows immediately who is there. She wants to be angry, but the heat flows into new channels that weren't there before.

She went out to talk to Orihime, but she's gone already, or so said the shady shopkeeper man. It occurred to her then that she really had no idea what she would have said. Perhaps it was better that way.

And it was.

Their paths crossed again after the war finished. Even though Loly knew that Halibel hated what she'd seen of and learned about the Soul King, she couldn't bring herself to actually care. It wasn't her concern. She learned about the battles, who won, who lost—the zombies that had been hidden in the Octava's lab out of people whom she'd wondered where they'd all gone. Though still, it was all idle curiosity and nothing more. Things were back to how they'd always been, and things had changed forever. But this at least was something she now knew and understood. She could appreciate everything she'd been through and savored it. It wasn't winter yet, but it was coming.

When she saw Orihime, she could see the recognition in her eyes, feel the warmth of her smile. Though Loly could never, not in a million years, say that she was sorry without wanting to tear out her own throat and scream until she was raw…she realized that it didn't hurt to say thanks. And when she did, she was just as jarred by Orihime's tears as she was by the fact that she mirrored them.

They sat side by side for a while. Things weren't perfect by any stretch, but Loly understood now the weight of everything that Orihime carried. She brushed the bright flame colored hair over Orihime's shoulder, the color of falling leaves, her eyes the color of the grey skies that come in to cover the summer sun and eventually give way to the first snowflake.

There is only one way back to winter. Now, seeing that she too had blossomed, she did not mind the autumn.


End file.
